Someone once told me that if it looks OK from 3' away then it's fine, and that implies a degree of impressionism, especially in T gauge. But did you mean non-prototypical rather than impressionistic? Plenty of that around in all scales.

I've always held the belief that unlike larger scales, where the better the detail (ie the right number of rivets) the better the model is, in T, we're striving to fool the mind and make people believe that detail that is too small to be seem is actually there....when in fact its not! Which is exactly what the thread title says!

Thanks Doug......I have some ideas for doing some prototypical stuff in the future (God will'n)>But for now I'm more into getting my trains color coordinated ....I already have 2 blue box cars and 3 red box cars so absolutely had to have some yellow ones......the tank car(?)...well that's another story...

I made 3 "new" box car shells but I'm waiting for a new motorized unit for the third one.I put one of the worn out motorized units in the steam loco. It pulses too badly at low speeds to look right in a diesel loco, but has a quite realistic choo choo sound in the steamer